Never Alone
by Clarilune
Summary: Everyone has a favorite color…but Squall Leonhart never got his until he had lost everything, until he was alone. And yet, even when he was alone, he really wasn't. The sky was his reminder of that.


A/N: I just realized…I really like similes. But putting that aside, let me just say that this was inspired…out of the blue, let's say? I kept listening to some really depressing songs about missing loved ones, and then this idea came to me. (Of course the song I chained to this idea is not about missing loved ones; it's actually a Christian song and a beautiful one, at that. Go listen to it if you get the chance!) I always wanted Rinoa to have a placing in Kingdom Hearts (I'm still hoping she will), and I thought this might've been an explanation as to why she hasn't. That, and I like inventing all sorts of possibilities within the Kingdom Hearts universe. For those of you who haven't played/heard of/researched Final Fantasy 8: Rinoa is a character from Final Fantasy 8 and is Squall's love interest in the game. References that are either obscure or obvious will be pointed out at the end of the story. In the meantime, please enjoy! Also, I apologize for the lack of dialogue in some areas. I think most of the time when a story is lacking dialogue it's pretty speechless. (Bad joke, bad joke. FORGIVE ME.)

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. If I did, my life would be complete. But, like a Nobody, I have to be content without being whole…Okay, I really need to shut up.**

* * *

"_And though I cannot see You  
And I can't explain why  
Such a deep, deep reassurance  
You've placed in my life oh  
We cannot separate  
'Cause You're part of me  
And though You're invisible  
I'll trust the unseen_

_I cried out with no reply_  
_And I can't feel You by my side_  
_So I'll hold tight to what I know_  
_You're here and I'm never alone"_

_-Never Alone _by BarlowGirl

* * *

_**Never Alone**_

* * *

Everyone has a favorite color—or at least a color that they might favor a little more amongst others. Some prefer orange; others pink, red, black, green…There are a lot of colors to choose from and to just _like_.

But Squall doesn't like any of them. In fact, he doesn't have a favorite color. He doesn't think he can like anything when it feels like the world has turned against him and failed him in yet another prospect.

Red, blue, green, purple…mostly green one second…and then blue…until there are certain spots where the blue lacks existence, of which white is in its place, dabbing through it like a stain, covering it like a napkin over the mouth…

Squall can never remember a time where the sky is as blue as it is now. Of course, he can also never remember a time where he's as sad.

Because he knows the space next to him will become available, unoccupied very soon. And that's not good. That's not good at all.

Squall turns his head so that he's catching a full-glimpse of the field of flowers from all around him. The plant life is plentiful, abundant in its exoticness as well as its beauty.

Which is why he's trying to understand why he hates it so much right now.

Hatred. It's become his constant companion, journeyed with him for reasons unexplained. It's often bloomed from inside him during the most random intervals in time, when nothing mattered, when he didn't care at what was being expended and sacrificed. He pushed others away for the cost of himself, to prevent any emotional injuries that could leave him feeling abandoned. He created his own defense mechanism by rejecting anyone or anything that came his way using sharp words with meaningful intent.

But there was one person that could change that, that could melt his impenetrable defense from a prepared rubber band ready to snap to one that was completely at rest. If they wanted to, they could snap their fingers and Squall would be there, somehow viewed in the context of many roles—a practiced butler, a trained pup…but most of all, a loving boyfriend.

"It's a beautiful day."

"Hm." Squall doesn't say anything back, but it's not out of rudeness. His eyes situate themselves on the glorious display of flowers, all of which are beginning to wither formidably under his cemented gaze, like the glance is heavy and hazardous enough to squash them. He's making it seem like the vegetation doesn't belong when he shoots them that look, but the reason it's aimed is to disregard the sadness inhabiting his mind and outweigh the overdose of emotions in his heart. That is a task that, as of yet, he hasn't been able to complete. And he won't be able to do it for a long time.

The girl from beside him, lying spread-eagled as if her arms are embracing the gift of flight, directs her assuaged brown eyes toward the sky. Everything about her presents a kindling luster, starting from her silky-straight black hair mirroring the outward position of her body and her petite face. A smile is on her face, despite how wrong it seems. It's genuine but lacking the happiness to match the glow she's exuding. Overall, she seems diminished and lacking energy to be kinetic, as if she's ill. Maybe because she's putting so much effort into being happy that it's draining her.

"You're really good…at keeping promises," she says sadly, and she turns her face so that she can look at him for a small instant before looking away guiltily.

"So are you," he says simply, and he turns his head away to look at the flowers again, burning them with a hateful glance. He begins to list the colors in his head again, tailing them through his invented spectrum. Red, blue, green…

She looks at him uneasily. The gleam in her eyes has lessened, reduced to a sparkle so dull that it blends with the flatness in her eyes. She feels like something has gnawed her from the inside-out because she knows he's acting like this—like a hand closing in on itself, clamming into a gnarled fist—because of her. It's her fault. For her, it took a little effort to draw him near, but it took even less to distance him.

"…Do you remember when we first met?"

"…" He pretends he doesn't hear her, even though his interest has been tipped toward her from the very beginning. The list of colors in his head continues like a countdown. Purple, blue, more green…

"I felt like I had to hit you in order to get your attention. That's kind of like now, isn't it?" She gently places her hand by his, wanting to curl into it but too tentative to do so, like she wants to grab a boiling pot but knows she'll just get burned. "Squall, please don't be too mad…"

Squall is shocked by her assumption, but he tries not to show it. He takes her hand, automatically granted relief from not having to listen to her from afar. He wants to—_needs_ to stay close to her, now especially.

"I'm not mad. I…could never be mad at you," he says truthfully, and this puts a real, alleviated smile on her face. He has to smile back at her even though his face isn't welcome to the expression. He does so hesitantly, despite the sadness, despite the pain, despite knowing what will happen…

Rinoa's voice, supple like syrup, timbers an outbreak in his thoughts, soaking it with sweetness. "Good! So let's not wallow. Be happy, okay? That's a promise you're going to have to keep for me."

Squall wants to question if she's serious, but he knows this is not a time for either of them to be joking. He stares at the sky and familiarizes his eyes with the color—the sky blue, that somehow reminds him deeply of the girl lying next to him. Immediately, something softens within him, like a rock eroding to sand and drifting lazily amongst the liquid carrier of the sea. His reply is textured smoothly, easily.

"I promise." His expression twists to one of sourness, like he's sucking on a spicy lemon. He's back in the distance, trying to cover up his real emotions to make this better for the both of them. No use being over-emotional or making them feel bad, right? He half-wonders if he's doing the right thing. Probably not. He can never do anything right. He can't even help the person he loves the most…

He continues. "I just don't know why you'd want to come here." Actually, he does know, but he wants to clarify, because it particularly matters to him and he will never forgive himself if he doesn't get the answer.

"Because we promised that we'd meet each other here, if we ever couldn't find each other. I know that coming here would make me be with you. And that's all I want." She squeezes his hand. "Besides, I love flowers. These are really pretty, aren't they? We're under the sky, lying in flowers…Like a dream, huh? But better, 'cause it's actually happening."

Squall wants to correct her, tell her it's more like a nightmare if it's happening because the tragedy of something else is…but he doesn't soil the moment by kicking dirt over it. He just kicks dirt over himself until he's practically buried alive while trying to make sure Rinoa remains unblemished, undisturbed…in her last moments. That's all he wants, for her to be happy. But wouldn't she be happier alive? _Remaining_ alive?

Someone once told him that wielding magic comes with an offering, a sacrifice. But does Rinoa have to be the example of that rule? Does she have to be the living proof? She tried to stop the Heartless from spreading; she tried to disrupt their flow as they spawned from various points of Radiant Garden. Squall would've stopped and _wanted_ to stop her from doing the most idiotic thing possible if he had known what she was doing: using up all the magic in her body to completely wipe out a field of the heart-robbers. It worked…but not without a price.

After Rinoa had unleashed such an attack, something within her started fading and it couldn't be reattached. She was brought to Aerith—a good healer and friend—but even she couldn't do a thing. She called what Rinoa was experiencing _Magara Poisoning_. It was when the body expended so much energy through the use of magic that it started consuming itself and its vitality. In other words, in a twisted act of survival, to preserve any legacy of Rinoa's magic, her body was killing itself.

Horrible fates have always stood for magic users. The most negative part of being a magic user was that the body would not try to protect itself but the magic sheltered within it instead. At all costs, magic must carry on to a successor or to another lifetime. Rinoa won't be able to live on, but her magic will.

Aerith called it irreversible. Irreparable. An impossible fix. Squall yelled at her, begged her, bargained with her to find a cure, to help keep Rinoa alive longer when he was told around a million times that her survival wouldn't be guaranteed. Aerith did what she could and did enough to keep the magic user conscious. After that, Squall had asked where Rinoa wanted to go, for her final moments, and she told him their meeting place, the field of flowers distanced far away from the corrupted Radiant Garden Castle. Eventually, Rinoa's efforts to get rid of the Heartless once and for all will be a lost cause because they will keep coming back until what Rinoa feared and tried to prevent will come true and the world will be swallowed by darkness.

Unknowing of this, Squall is lucky to have Rinoa even now. She should have been dead after she had blasted that suicide attack on the army of Heartless. She's remaining alive long enough for them to share their last couple of moments together…and he must say he's so thankful for that.

He rolls himself nearer to her, to where there's no distance and the flowers are reverently witnessing the unusual affection from the usually disclosed loner. He looks at her, really _looks_ at her and absorbs her beauty, grasps her image so that memorization becomes a thicker, natural skill and he can easily paint a picture but not completely ascertain the beauty of each of her features. Capturing exactly what makes her beautiful through a painting is difficult because there's so much that makes her beautiful, but naming the traits that supply such exquisiteness and charm to her natural outlook isn't an issue. He's busily, passionately assessing the emotion in her eyes and no longer bothering to cover up the tears in his when he speaks.

"I love you."

There isn't a falter to her smile. "I love you, too."

And they embrace each other and talk and sit and gorge the presence of the other until it happens. Rinoa fades completely, and a part of Squall does as well.

But not without giving birth to something else.

* * *

_Leon's always so gentle with the flowers,_ Aerith notes, as she watches the gun-swordsman tenderly pluck a longish stem from a field to place inside the basket Aerith has given him.

When she discovered there was an identical field of flowers in Traverse Town that was just like the one she visited in Radiant Garden, she humbly requested the accompaniment to see it. Yuffie had considerately turned her down once saying she was working on defying gravity and mastering the skill of walking on the ceiling (Later, Aerith will come home to discover that Yuffie did indeed walk on the ceiling, after she had removed it and set it on the ground. Way to defy gravity.). Nevertheless, Aerith was a little relieved when she heard that, because she didn't know how Yuffie would be able to behave in a field of flowers. The ninja was usually so risky and adventurous and very…hazardous, even when she didn't mean to be. The flowers needed to be treated properly, carefully, _softly_, like cradling a baby. That's another reason why she immediately didn't ask Cid, or even at all. However, when Leon _volunteered_ to do it—to come with her to collect some flowers or possibly just view them—it stunned her.

"Are you sure?" she asked uncertainly, checking to make sure she had heard correctly.

He had nodded stiffly, but with complete certainty. The gesture was so recalcitrant that the thought of refusal was an instant impossibility. He was absolutely serious. And he is now, too.

As he picks up the flowers, it's like he's holding the most breakable, fragile object in the world, and he has to slowly lower it into the basket to deliver it with the remote barrens of safety. With every flower he picks up, he reacts as if in his hand there's a life that cannot be repaired and therefore must be handled with utter delicacy so practiced that it seems like he rehearsed and trained himself precisely for the moment. It's shocking, really. Leon's so withdrawn, so cold and spiteful at times that Aerith has to smile now as she sees the obvious care in his actions.

Aerith looks away once Leon catches on that he's being watched—surveyed, really.

He looks at her as if he's seeking advice, like a student requiring the assistance of a teacher to double-check for mistakes. He almost feels like he has made a mistake, since Aerith's observing him so much. "…Yes?"

"Nothing, nothing." She turns and bends down to pick a few lying helplessly off to the side, like they've already plucked themselves and have been waiting for her. She deposits them into her basket and pulls her shoulders back when she straightens up, staring thoughtfully at him as he peers longingly at a blue one in his hands. "I just think your treatment toward the flowers is really…nice."

Leon doesn't say anything for a long time. For a moment Aerith bites on her lip and hopes she hasn't said the wrong thing. But when he does say something, she exhales and realizes she's been holding her breath for the entire time.

"I didn't think there was another way for me to treat them...It's a beautiful day." He means it, which has what's got Aerith's thoughts fumbling hysterically for a response that can match the composure that his did.

Leon? Saying this? How peculiar. How strange. How…

Nostalgic.

Aerith sees a flash of Squall, his former self, in Leon but doesn't say anything. In the end, she just smiles and picks up a daisy, arranging it into her multicultural group of flowers. The rest of the basket welcomes it without prejudice.

"It is," she agrees, and shuffles away to separate herself from him for just a moment, because it's obvious, as he looks up at the sky, that his thoughts have gathered a possessive, reflective hold on his mind.

He's still staring at the sky, watching and admiring it for its lack of transformation and infinite beauty. Frozen, unchanging, and still so beautiful. He decides that this isn't bad. He's a little glad he's come and that Aerith hasn't prodded him with questions about his behavior like Yuffie would do.

Mindlessly, while still staring up at the sky—as if the expanse is controlling him—he puts the flower in a cuff on his jacket and carefully steps where no flowers are being grown.

Leon used to not have a favorite color, and he used to not be called Leon. The person once known as Squall has become only a memory, locked deep inside Leon, like wounded skin that's been layered over by an immovable scab. The loss of Rinoa and his world drove a gash into his soul, broke open the earth of his being to create a pit so bottomless it was a canyon and a vulnerable entrance to his very core. He threw Squall into the abyss while rescuing Leon from it, unable to handle the losses of two very important things. Because of this, many things changed, and he lost himself.

However, right now, he feels safe under the dwelling of the sky. Not insecure, like he did before. Not hateful. Not uncaring. He feels happy. He feels…good.

It could be because blue—_sky_ blue—is his favorite color. But really it's because he's not alone. Even when he was, he really wasn't. He isn't.

And he never will be.

* * *

_**End.**_

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A/N: Indeed, that is the end. I was a little afraid of putting in the favorite color part, since when my sister read it she said it made Squall/Leon seem...feminine? I totally disagree, but we've all got different opinions.

**_If You Must Know..._**

1) _"Because we promised that we'd meet each other here, if we ever couldn't find each other. I know that coming here would make me be with you. And that's all I want."_

_-_I don't mean to be spoiler-ish, but in Final Fantasy 8 this is an actual promise that Squall and Rinoa made in the game. If they ever needed to find each other, they would just go to that field of flowers. I based this off of that, since the KH universe and the FF8 one are completely different. Also, the field of flowers are based off of that same field in FF8. Look up the introduction to the game if you want to see it.

2) _Someone once told him that wielding magic comes with an offering, a sacrifice._

_-_I based this off of a rule that I heard in this one anime, called "Fullmetal Alchemist." The rule is: _Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent__Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth. _I think that's based on an actual rule, but I really don't know for sure. Anyway, it was based loosely on that.

3) _She called what Rinoa was experiencing Magara Poisoning._

_-_Yes, I did totally invent this. I was going to call it _Magic Poisoning_, but instead I kind of combined it with the other components of magic, using suffixes like -ara. It was going to be "Magaga," based on "firaga" or "thundaga" or something, but I decided I liked _Magara_ better.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Review, read, criticize. Do whatever you want. Feedback is nice, but just the fact that anyone has taken their time to read this is nice enough. :) Thank you to anyone who did!


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